Are you trapped in the search engine bubble?

[smilodon]

Are you trapped in the search engine bubble?

I'm going to use Google as my example but this will work for most mainstream search engines. I like Google and use it's services a lot, so this is certainly not a dig at them specifically but at a general problem with search technology.

 It's probably well known to us all that the basic business model that companies like Google use is targeted advertising. Google hope to build up a profile of us as users through analysis of our searches, page 'likes', You Tube viewing habits, the contents of our email messages within Gmail etc etc. While they don't shout the fact from the roof tops Google make no secret of the fact that they use this system of profiling to give us relevant adverts. Whether that's a fair price for us to pay for free web search, Gmail, You Tube, Google +, Google Drive and the mass of other services and products Google provide free of charge is for each of us to decide ourselves.

However another feature of Google's (and all other mainstream search engines) offering is adaptive search results. Google have decided that it's a great idea to try to use what they know about us to provide more personal and relevant search. When we look for a word or phrase Google will check our unique profile and make certain assumptions about us when deciding on the order of the results we receive. We're going to get a different set of results from another person as we have a different profile. What creates our profile is the search and likes etc that we've done before. The main consequence of this is that our own prejudices and beliefs will start to change the results we see. Even when searching for news or factual content we'll see results that differ from another persons results. The consequences of this is that we don't see a balanced set of results but ones that reinforce our existing ideas and beliefs which may be not well informed or worse just plain wrong.

If we're an avid conservative and make a point of clicking on links to right wing media and news outlets we'll begin to see right wing media resources appear higher on our search result lists. Conversely if we're a socialist we'll begin to get search results that are skewed towards left wing content. We won't see any information that challenges our ideas or gives an alternative view to our own. This is not a healthy way to live for all kinds of obvious reasons. It's not just party politics that can be a problem. Search for homoeopathy, climate change, religion, Apple, etc and the results that we see will be different dependant on the profile we have with Google. If we're a believer in  homoeopathy we'll spend a lot of time in pro-homoeopathy web sites and we'll click on a lot of links that take us to pro-homoeopathy content. Over time our search results will begin to reflect our preferences and we'll see more pro web sites and few anti-homoeopathy sites. Our existing views about the subject will be reinforced and we'll stop being exposed to alternative views. We'll never be challenged in our beliefs or develop a rounded balanced view.

We're now living in a 'search engine bubble' of our own making. We become ignorant of other ideas, beliefs and views on any given subject. It's a small step from ignorance to intolerance. And intolerance is the root cause of almost every problem and conflict we have in the world.

Our mainstream press already spoon feeds us a version of the world they think we want to hear in the hope that they can continue to flog us their rag or feed us their TV adverts. The Internet is the last hold out for diverse views and ideas. As soon as we all live inside the 'bubble' we'll never see the alternative view and never be asked to consider any other point of view.

There is an argument for bespoke search. If I'm looking for ideas about a night out at the theatre I'd prefer to see results for West End shows rather than Broadway ones. But if I search for Barack Obama I don't want to see results from one end of the political spectrum rather than across all sections. So targeted search has it's place but the filters need to be far more obvious and in our control rather than Google, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook etc.

So log out of Google, dump Chrome for Firefox and search with www.duckduckgo.com

You know it makes sense :thumb:

[Penfold]

Interesting (and not a little scary).

Made it my homepage for some trialling.

Nice work Inspector.

[Blunt]

I'm going to give this a go.
I use 'Do Not Track Plus', does this prevent google slanting my results?

[smilodon]

Duck duck go is a decent search engine but my one critism is that I've not found a way to search via date. Sometimes it's nice to see very recent results if you're searching for a review or howto or checking news about a specific subject.

They have a nice summary about the 'bubble' here http://dontbubble.us/ It's a lot better than my effort to explain the issue as well. I still use Google search, I just make sure I'm not logged into my Gmail account and clear cookies if I want clean results. And yep Do Not Track plus is a great addon as well.

[T-Bag]

I've tried both Google and Bing against one another. I find google results for what I search are vastly better than Bing, so if that is a result of google having more information on me then I don't really mind. Duckduckgo seems to give reasonable results but I've got no real problem with my results being biases slightly towards what I typically click. If I manually filter out results (by not clicking them) that match my preconceived notions, I don't see the harm in the search engine doing it for me. It just means I find what I'm looking for faster.
If I want to see unbiased results I use Incognito mode in chrome which doesn't have any tracking info.

The problem with the "Bubble" idea is people who are in the bubble aren't aware they are and so won't seek an alternative approach or search engine. For those who are aware already it's a bit of a non-issue.

The real problem is when people read false information and take it as true. That can only be avoided by a "fact checking" service. Content would get vetted an approved or flagged as wrong etc. That for the most part is how wikipiedia operates. I think a news operation acting in a similar way that flags misleading statistics and outright lies by other media outlets would be a very positive step. However, I can see people being turned off the idea very quickly if something they believe is questioned. People typically like to be told they're right.